Part 24 - Ride of the Valkyries The story so far... In 1935 the 10 year old Margaret Hilda Roberts moves with her family from Grantham to Thaxted, a picturesque town some 80 miles to the South. Until then the most influential figure in her life has been her father, Alfred, but Peggy now falls under the influence of Father Conrad Noel, an Anglo-Catholic Trotskyite Morris Dancer. After winning a scholarship to Oxford to study law, Peggy meets and eventually marries The Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, or 'Jimmy' as he is known to close friends and family. Jimmy's career as the MP for Bristol South East is cut short by his father's death and his inheritance of the family title as Viscount Stansgate. Peggy, now Lady Stansgate, stands at the subsequent by-election to take Jimmy's place. By organising the Programme, a faction within a faction of the Labour Party, Peggy is able to take over leadership of the parliamentary party following Harold Wilson's narrow defeat at the hands of Prime Minister Enoch Powell in the first 1969 General Election. Powell calls a second General Election four months later to take advantage of what he sees as favourable circumstances but events conspire against him. It is Mrs Wedgwood Benn, as she is now styling herself, who is victorious. Now read on...

(Friday, 22 August, 1969) "You effete Ivy Leaguer!" raged the President, "You mean it was your idea to get this commie [woman] into power?" You cornpone hillbilly, thought the Secretary of State, but discretion prevented him vocalising this thought. Anyway, the Old Man hated everybody. Even though Nixon was politically dead and buried, Johnson - no mean liar himself, would still rage about Tricky Dicky's mendacity in terms that would put Harry Truman to shame[1]. "It was actually Hank's idea to leak the information," Kennedy said modestly, "but I take full responsibility for acting upon it, Mr President." "Do you now?" thundered Johnson, his face getting redder and redder, "And can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't fire you immediately?" "Several, actually," said Kennedy in a way calculated to rile his boss while still falling short of actual insubordination. Kennedy was quite the hater too, with specific enemies like Hoffa and Castro as well as more generalised ones, Southerners, Westerners and the Eastern establishment more British-than-the-British Mayflower descendants. "We are rid of that loose cannon Powell. He was threatening us with nuclear weapons. Benn may actually be committed to unilateral disarmament. "Secondly, Benn may be a revolutionary socialist but her party is merely social democratic. She and her supporters are only a minority within the party. She appears to have been chosen as a figurehead, someone with a bit of pizzazz who could beat Powell. Benn doesn't represent an authentic direction that her country, or even her party, are taking. "Thirdly, you got peace in Ireland. We're already negotiating a return of the Taoiseach to Ireland." "What about Vietnam?" growled the President. "Well yeah, they are going to pull out there. The bright side is that we've been able to scotch those rumours of an air defence battalion going to Hanoi. It's a complete pull-out, not a redeployment. And this puts Britain in exactly the same position as all our other NATO allies. No-one else, not even Canada, has sent troops to fight alongside us." "Jesus Bobby, you're not bringing this up again..." "No, Mr President." Bobby knew Lyndon was firmly of the belief that if America was the only NATO country set on a course of action then it was the other fourteen who were out of step. "With RVNization[2] underway we'll accept the pull-out of the British forces and put back the withdrawal of the 551st Regiment in its place. The ANZAIs[3] are still willing to remain so it's not like we've lost the entire Commonwealth Brigade. Prime Minister Holt has even offered to increase the Australian forces from one battalion to three after he wins his October election." "Bobby, are you seriously telling me there's only upsides here?" "No, Mr President. We would have preferred it if Wilson could've beaten Powell in April. Wilson was a centrist. But four months later Labour is still the same party it would've been if Wilson had won. Besides, Wilson was, well, mercurial..." "You mean just plain nuts?" "I'm not a doctor, Mr President. A man, especially a politician, can have a lot of enemies though perhaps not as many as Wilson thought he had. He had mood swings, he often changed his position on issues. For him, a lot could happen in just a week." The President strained. He would be 61 next week and his digestion was letting him down. Then a look of relief suffused his face. "All right. You've gotten rid of a bur under my saddle and replaced him with what seems the lesser of two evils. I guess you and Hank can keep your jobs. I've got Hank's resignation letter in front of me; it'll soon be behind me. One thing. This Mrs Wedgwood Benn starts causing us grief, I expect you two'll deal with her the same way you dealt with Powell?" "Yes, Mr President."

(Friday, 22 August, 1969) The ceremony of kissing hands is reputedly symbolic these days rather than actual. But as only the Sovereign and her new Prime Minister are involved, and the proceedings are private and confidential, who knows what happens when two strong-minded and fit women, each in their early forties, are alone together for the first time? Jimmy thought he had a fair idea, when Peggy came storming back into the flat above Number 10. He'd already sorted out his own books and was now working on the joint library. He was about to ask Peggy where she wanted the first English edition of 'Capital' to go when she stormed, "That woman! She is so reactionary!" Viscount Stansgate, who had mixed with a few of the upper crust in his time, was unsurprised at this intelligence. Brenda was reputedly a product of her up-bringing. Her mother, although a commoner, was even more of a Tory than her father King George VI, now sadly departed. "She's just a constitutional figure-head! She is a mere symbol of the state. She can't tell me what she will and won't say in the speech for the opening of the new parliament." Ah, thought Jimmy, the Queen's speech. He thought that would be tricky. The Queen's speech was used by an incoming government to outline which of their numerous election promises they intended to keep. By tradition, the House of Lords did not create to much of a fuss over bills giving effect to measure's outlined in the speech. "Well, as you know Peggy, because of the sudden and unexpected nature of the election, we hadn't completed the update of the Manifesto from Harold's..." "If you'll just let me continue!" snapped the Prime Minister, "I explained to her that Clause 4 clearly said that we would secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry and service." Jimmy was mentally humming along as Peggy recited the words. He knew Clause 4 off by heart, it was one of his favourite pieces from the Labour constitution. "And she said," continued Peggy, oblivious to the breach of protocol, "that the Labour constitution was not the same thing as the Labour manifesto." Jimmy stared closely for the tell-tale signs that Peggy had stopped speaking. "Well, she has got a point. Clause 4 was in our constitution in 1945 and we didn't introduce full Socialism then." "We certainly didn't," agreed Peggy, "but you must remember we had just come out of a major war where bloated American plutocrats had leached most of our national wealth, where our brave soldiers were dying for their hegemonistic interests." Jimmy had a distant look in his eyes, "I remember it more of a popular front where we were fighting with our United Nations allies, America and the Soviet Union, to defeat imperialistic, militaristic fascism." "That goes without saying," said Peggy in what for her was almost a concession, "the point was the country was not in a position to implement Socialism then. Now we can and The People expect us to." The capitalisation of 'The People' perplexed Jimmy. "By The People do you mean individual Labour voters?" "No, I'm referring to The Working Class," Peggy said in a school ma'amish tone. "And now it looks like we'll have to force through Socialism in the teeth of opposition from the Lords. Ah, well. The Class Struggle was always going to be a struggle. Now Jimmy, I wonder if you could run along for a couple of hours. I've got Denis and Jennie coming over to help me settle on the new Cabinet." "Right-ho!" said Jimmy, placing 'Capital' back in the box and standing up. "Save something for me." "Of course dear," said Peggy, giving him a peck on the cheek. Jimmy decided to stroll to the Member's Bar at Westminster. He felt the need for a tincture and after two dozen years with Peggy he had long ceased to be a teetotaller.

(Tuesday, 26 August, 1969) Lieutenant Joseph Robert Kerrey was not a happy man. He was the Army's damn patsy. A routine Dallas mission into bandit country disrupted by a Master Sergeant[4] in a helicopter gunship who was not in the QT. Machine gunning Kerrey's own men! Yet it was this interloping NCO who was the hero! The Army hadn't admitted to the American public that Dallas was SoP. But only a fool could fail to see that in this country you had to fight fire with fire. Charlie used terror tactics - if a village headman in an unpacified area was pro-Saigon it was not just him but his wives and children that could be killed. Failure to respond in kind was just giving in to terrorism. My Lai had been one of the larger operations of its kind. Its scope meant that there was the risk that other units would stumble in while the operation was underway. That was the contingency that Kerrey's superiors had been meant to deal with and they'd screwed up. Now Kerrey was carrying the can. On top of this My Lai had only been Kerrey's second mission as platoon leader. His men had been inclined to rush to judgement, muttering that Kerrey was a 'hard luck' Lieutenant. Well, he might not be their leader for much longer, he thought as he polished his boots for tomorrow's operation. Colonel Powell had told him he was to report to MACV Friday. "As you know, Bob, it's not a court marshal," Powell insisted, "it's just a hearing." It still didn't sound good. He had planned on making Captain in three years time. He could now see this plan turning to ashes. In fact, things couldn't get much worse. Then the hand grenade rolled into the tent. [If you'll just let me continue.]

[1] "Richard Nixon is a no-good lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in," Harry S Truman. [2] Broadly similar to Nixon's 'Vietnamization'. Trust a Democrat to coin such an ugly word. [3] Australians and New Zealanders, the only remaining forces not actually being paid by the Americans. [4] Not Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson in this timeline. But some other soldier who'd taken the time to read, mark and inwardly digest the 'Laws of Land Warfare' card he'd been given on arrival in Vietnam.